


At The Edge Of The Cliff

by Jessa



Series: One-shots and Drabbles [17]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, finnlo - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Ben is 23, Explicit Language, Finn is 17, Hurt/Comfort, Kylo/Ben develops a crush, M/M, Prompt Fill, References to PTSD, References to Underage Drinking, References to substance abuse (Han might have had a drinking problem), Unresolved Sexual Tension, kylo and ben are personas of the same person, thoughts about suicide (Kylo/Ben)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 14:31:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17830361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessa/pseuds/Jessa
Summary: Prompt: 23 yo Kylo meets a young Finn right after burning Luke's academy and joining the FO.This was posted in the #finnlo channel of multishippers on discord. And then added was ‘I just want young Ben crying between Finn’s arms’ and that’s really the part I picked up and ran with here, less the FO bit although there are references if you look out for them. But mostly this is just messed up Ben/Kylo literally on a precipice. Finn is there for him, although not quite the Finn we know him as yet. I wrote this super fast and I loved writing it. Thanks for the prompt! I hope you enjoy the read.





	At The Edge Of The Cliff

**Author's Note:**

  * For [persimonne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/persimonne/gifts).



* * *

It isn’t the smell. That’s not what’s doing him in again now. Reminding him. Of the acrid scents of burnt hair and singed flesh that rent the air as his saber cut through their organic things. Things he’d used to personalise them all. Things he’d told himself to stop associating with them like that. As it happened, he’d told himself that. Right after the betrayal. But it isn’t the smell.

And it isn’t the sound here, either. Reminding him of the terrible way they’d screamed for their lives once they knew he was coming for them. But just like the smell, there is a sound here now, too, that’s trying to pull Ben back. That’s trying to re-attach the parts of himself he’s just split in two. Detached. And actually, although there’s just the one smell here doing it, there are many, many more than one sound.

“What are you doing here? I didn’t think anyone else could get this high but me.”

The smell is some kind of fuel. Is it? This seems like an odd place for ignition fluid, though. Why the fuck would ignition fluid be here, at the edge of a cliff? But the smell here now is definitely hard like that stuff. It’s stinging his nose like that stuff.

Ben glances to the source and the trooper is holding a bottle, he can see the silhouette of it now through the moonlight. Ben might recognise it. Does he? Hadn’t his father drunk enough of it? Gone through enough of those bottles since Ben was about the age of ten? Sometimes he’d even let him taste it. Correlian whiskey. Tastes so much better than it smells.

“Not talking to me, huh? Okay. Well, maybe you need some too, then? I haven’t tasted it yet but it smells terrible. I don’t even know why I took it, I’m not even thirsty. They fed you yet? I should have stolen food. That’s what I _should_ have done. Took this instead, though. I guess I don’t always think first. But it’s easier that way. You know?”

And that’s when Ben knows it for sure. That even though the smell and the sounds here at the edge of the cliff are competing with the ones still ghosting his nostrils, and ringing in his ears - heart still pounding hard, adrenalin still coursing through him - something else is here now, too, threatening to take the terrible ghosts he’s just made away.

And threatening to also take something else with it. Something Kylo thought Ben had buried. Split with his soul. Disassociated from. But Ben still has so many things to learn. Things he knows he needs Kylo to teach him. Clearly. He needs that so badly. Because Ben can’t tear his eyes away now from the trooper.

“You a mute, maybe? I’ve heard of those. Well, some of them are my friends I guess, I mean I _totally_ get it. Being dumbstruck. I’ve seen things that would make me stop talking too if I could.”

He’s beautiful. Eyes bright. Skin smooth and unblemished. And his hair is close-cropped. The shape of his skull might be perfect. So unlike Ben’s: angular, too big and awkward. Everything about this person seems smooth and supple. And his lips. This young man’s lips. As they speak to Ben, they are hypnotising. _Fuck,_ how old is he? So much about him reminds Ben of temple, and that _one_ time. Just that very _one_ time. And it’s the trooper’s lips that are doing it. Pulling at those memories he’s trying so hard to forget. Those lips. And the open bottle in his closed fist.

Ben has only ever done both those things once. One sip and one kiss. Is that why it happened? _Shit,_ did Luke sense that, too? That Ben had feelings, as well as power, he couldn’t control as he should?

And here they are again, those feelings. Emerging at the sight of a bottle. The memory of only one sip. And the presence of lips that Ben could kiss just like he had at temple. Lips that belonged to the first one he'd slain.

Ben turns around and drops to his knees. The edge of the cliff is so close now. What would it feel like to be free of this pain? Would he feel like a bird? And not the heavy thing he’s become, full of doubt and Dark? And now also full of a self-hatred so great he’s here. At the edge of the cliff. Considering this.

The first tear falls as Ben hears the sounds again, and smells the Corellian whiskey.

“Are you okay?”

 _No,_ Ben thinks. _I’m not._

With his head now bowed at the edge of the cliff, Ben’s tears fall free. And they don’t stop when arms are around him, although maybe they do think about it. Maybe they do pause. As he wonders.

Are they his own arms? Is he self-soothing? But it can’t be that because something is beside his cheek, something soft. It might be the trooper. Is it? Does it matter? If there’s someone really there or if this is just his head again? If Ben’s just imagining some different kind of _out,_ as he stares at the depths of the ocean, crashing at the rocks far down below and beyond the edge of the cliff. And the soft thing is still there at his cheek.

It seems to be trying to break the streams of dampness coating the skin of his face. And the arms, now, are wrapping themselves more tightly around him, although Ben is still openly weeping. But the arms don’t leave him there alone to cry. They, and the soft thing still at his cheek, don’t disappear as sorrow continues to wrack Ben’s body. As he weakens even further. As that happens, the arms of the trooper don’t withdraw, shy away or shrink back, but strengthen their firm hold of him, anchoring him there on the edge of the cliff.

Ben never looked again at that face until much later. He just let himself stay there, collapsed in those arms. As Kylo recovered himself, there on the edge of the cliff, Ben stared at the number until the tears stopped.

The number the face belonged to. The smell and the sounds. And the lips. As Ben made a new association. And for some reason Kylo let him.

A new association between comfort, and the number on the chest the arms held him against. He stared at that number for as long as he could. Both Kylo and Ben, determined to remember it, long after they all survived this. 

_FN-2187._


End file.
